Day and Night in Bordeaux

11:00 AM, November 1--The morning in Bordeaux began, like so many other days of my life, with me making a dumb mistake.

Tristan and I took the tram all the way into town from his apartment on the outskirts, and came upon an unexpectedly mammoth cathedral. I brought my trusty camera out of my pocket, turned it on and aimed...and realized it had no memory card.

45 minutes and a round trip on the tram later, I took these pictures of the cathedral:

Feeling small...

After that, we walked all around the city center, where the several open-air markets were just closing up. Bordeaux has a heavy immigrant influence, and the prevalence of North African culture is evident. We made our way through an American-style fairground and past a beautiful fountain, where I couldn't resist posing like a jerk.

What a jerk! I hate these Americans!

Eventually we came to the side of the river Garonne, which is enormous in Bordeaux before it empties into the nearby Atlantic. There, I saw an enormous dead rat. I can't think of a better way to put that...Tristan laughed and covered his eyes as he imagined what everyone would think of Bordeaux when they saw the picture. I probably should have put something in for perspective, but it was about 18 inches from head to tail.

Almost stepped on it, which would have been a better story.

Soon after, we came to the Miroir d'Eau (Water Mirror), which afforded this picture:

Christ-like in so many ways.

Since we had seen most of the city, we went back to the apartment and rested for a little while before setting off for St. Emilion, a famous town in the wine country. We got there after dark, but it was an extremely picturesque French town, with wine shops every 30 feet. Only there for the town, we wandered around for a while and had a drink at a cafe, then headed back to Bordeaux.

This shot took forever to get, so I hope you appreciate it.

That night, Tristan took me out to his favorite bar in downtown Bordeaux, "Calle Ocho", a salsa bar that was really more like a club. For some reason my memory gets a little foggy at this point, but it was a great time, full of electronic salsa music and mint liquer shots and blacklights that illuminated all the dandruff on my one nice shirt.

I should have bought a hat like that.

The morning after it was time for a complicated triple-train voyage to a little farm south of Le Mans...